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Monday, January 16, 2017

Welcome to
my stop on the Virtual Tour, presented by France Book
Tours, for The Elusive Elixir
by Gigi Pandian. Please leave a comment or question for Gigi
to let her know you stopped by. You may
enter her tour wide giveaway by filling out the giveaway form below. You may follow all of the stops on the tour
by clicking on the banner above. The more
stops you visit the better your odds of winning. Good luck!

Dorian
Robert-Houdin, the three-and-a-half-foot gargoyle chef who fancies himself a
modern-day Poirot, is slowly turning into stone, and it’s up to Zoe Faust to
unravel the alchemical secrets that can save him. When they discover that a
long-lost stone gargoyle with a connection to Dorian has reappeared in Europe,
the stakes are even higher.

From
Portland to Paris, Zoe searches for the hidden knowledge she needs, but a cold
case that harkens back to 1942 throws her off course. With an ailing friend
desperately trying to discover his own elixir of life and a new romantic
interest offering the first chance at love she’s had in nearly a century, Zoe
is torn between a dangerous form of alchemy and her desire for a safer life.

Excerpt
from The Elusive Elixir by Gigi
Pandian

I
slid Not Untrue Alchemy from the bag. The book fell open to the page it always
fell open to. These were the words that had once accidentally brought Dorian to
life, when Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin had read the words as a dramatic addition
to his stage show.

I
began to read the mysterious words aloud.

Here
in Paris, I felt the power of the words so deeply that I was caught off guard.
My body began to sway as strongly as when I’d been on a fishing boat during an
unexpected typhoon. I braced myself against the wall with my free hand and
looked at the gargoyle, hoping he wouldn’t begin to shake as much as I was.
Then he’d be sure to fall and shatter.

The
gargoyle didn’t move.

I
sat down on a nearby chair and cradled the confounding book on my lap. Reading
from an alchemy book alone shouldn’t direct so much power toward myself. And
certainly not this quickly. Alchemy involves practicing in solitude in one’s
own alchemy lab, going through the processes of calcination, dissolution,
separation, fermentation, distillation, and coagulation.

But
this book was backward alchemy, where shortcuts abound and one element is
sacrificed for another. Alchemy can seem like magic, because we can’t see the
mechanism of the transfer of energy under a microscope. But it’s not any
different than theoretical physics. You don’t have to see science to believe in
it. Alchemists were early chemists, but because of “puffers”—the fools who only
saw alchemy as a way to make money and sought favor with kings by transmuting
lead into gold for political gains—alchemy was squashed, twisted, and
discredited. Across time, whenever true alchemists have tried to come out from
the shadows, it has ended badly.

Still
feeling like I was seasick, I focused my breathing. Think, Zoe. I read the
incantation again. The gargoyle again failed to come to life.

There
was one more thing I wanted to try. I had a packet of tea with me, leftovers of
the Tea of Ashes I’d made for Dorian before coming to Paris to stave off his
backward transformation into stone. I’d saved the remnants of the ash-like
substance that I’d created from the living plants in my garden.

The
gargoyle’s mouth was frozen half open, revealing a dark gray tongue and sharp
teeth. I rubbed the ashes onto his stone tongue. The gray powder coated the
rough surface, disappearing into the stone pores.

I
stepped back. Nothing.

The
sound of a buzzing bee interrupted the silence. One of the bees inside the
book’s wrapping was frantically trying to escape. I shut the book and pushed it
back inside. Let the bees have it. It wasn’t doing me any good.

The
buzzing subsided, but the room wasn’t silent. There was now another sound.

Wheezing.

My
eyes flew to the gargoyle’s dark face. His gray eyes began to water.

“Peux-tu
m’entendre?” I asked. Can you hear me?

The
gargoyle wasn’t able to move his stone body, but his eyes were alive. I felt a
jolt of pity as his sad eyes locked onto mine. Gray stone lips twitched. I
wished I’d been wrong. I wished what the scholars believed was the truth, that
this was simply a gargoyle carved by a stone carver with an offbeat sense of
humor.

Not
this—a living soul trapped in stone.

I
also wished I’d been wrong about Dorian’s book. It had led me to the recipe for
the Tea of Ashes and to Notre Dame, but it appeared to have served its purpose.
It wasn’t a miracle that could save the gargoyles from reverting to stone.

The
last words were barely audible. The wheezing stopped. His lips froze, but for a
moment longer his liquid gray eyes bore into mine. He blinked once more, then
went still.

USA Today bestselling author Gigi Pandian spent her childhood being
dragged around the world by her cultural anthropologist parents, and now lives
outside San Francisco with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the
garden.

Gigi writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, Accidental Alchemist
mysteries, and Locked-Room Mystery short stories. Gigi’s fiction has been awarded the Malice
Domestic Grant and Lefty Awards, and been nominated for Macavity and Agatha
Awards.

An
old mystery, vegan recipes and a reluctant alchemist forced to face her past, take
center stage in The
Elusive Elixir, the third installment in Gigi Pandian’sAccidental Alchemist Mystery series.
A fan of the previous two books in the
series, The
Accidental Alchemist and The Accidental Magician, I couldn’t wait to dive
into this installment to see what would happen next. If you’re a fan of mysteries, French cooking,
magic and science, this is a series you’re going to want to check out, just
make sure you start with the first book in the series.

Ms. Pandian takes
us on an interesting journey in this instalment as the story begins; while Zoe discovered
a “cure” for Dorian in the previous installment, it was only temporary and he continues
turning into stone. Determined to find a
permanent cure for her friend, Zoe heads to Paris, their previous home, hoping she
will be able to decode more of the mysterious “backward alchemy” book now in
her possession. She just never counted
on being accused of an unsolved 70 year old murder or on discovering another
living gargoyle.

I
really like how Ms. Pandian incorporates more of Zoe and Dorian’s past in this
installment as she continues to develop both of them, and their new lives, in Portland. While Zoe spends some time in Paris, and we
get a glimpse of her life in Paris during WW2, she quickly heads back to
Portland and brings the unsolved murder mystery with her. As she works to solve both problems, with
Dorian’s help, we get to watch them interact with the new people in their
lives; Brixton, Max and Ivan, well developed secondary characters who each
contribute something important to the developing story.

As
usual I really enjoyed reading about Dorian’s kitchen exploits and his vegan
gastronomical creations, Zoe’s healthy elixirs and the slowly growing romance
between Zoe and Max. I also enjoyed
Brixton’s contribution to this story and how it connected to Zoe’s search for
Dorian’s cure. Ms. Pandian also does a
good job with the mystery part of the story, and with how it connects to Zoe’s
past. There are plenty of twists and turns which keep the reader guessing.

Will
Zoe be able to solve two murder mysteries and discover a permanent cure for
Dorian’s problem? Will the cure require
a sacrifice she and Dorian will not be willing to make? And will she be able to
keep Ivan and Max from discovering all of her secrets? You’ll have to read The Elusive Elixir
to find out. I really enjoyed it and
look forward to reading the next installment in this series.

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